80M to 70Cms for $400

I was lucky enough to pick up a commercial 100W HF mobile set for $15 on Ebay which I swapped  for a TS-520. 

40M of 3.0mm stranded copper wire scrounged from a job at work and $10 for a ferrite ring to make the balun
for an OCF dipole. RG-213 coax and N connectors, discarded from an old 10-Base-5 ethernet installation - 
free. Picked up a pair of transverters for 2m and 70cm at a hamfest for $70.
 
A Discone from ebay cost around $70 and a mate gave me a set of commercial radios for 6m, 2m and 70cm FM but 
these kinds of radios can be picked up for around $100 - $150 each on EBay.
 
Let's round it up and say that for AUD $400 I'm on the air all mode from 80m to 70cm not including 6m. 
Granted that I need to work on my antennas a little but that's nothing that a little ingenuity and elbow
grease can't fix. 

In all honesty, I spend more money on test equipment and components than I have on my radio gear. There's nothing
particularly special about any of this gear and it's fairly easy to keep running but it's certainly not rubbish either.

Sure there's many out there that will buy their 706mkII or TS-2000 and skybuster III aerials
(insert appropriate name brand) but there's many more out there that scrounge old gear or still build their own.
 I imagine the same holds true all over the ham world.